Tempura in Tokyo

Tempura is battered, deep-fried food. What makes it Japanese, and what makes Tokyo tempura its own thing, is how thin the batter is, how hot the oil is and how quickly it all happens.

The batter is cold water, egg and wheat flour, with no leavening, cornstarch or beer. The flour goes in last and barely gets mixed, and lumps are a good sign. Mixing too much develops gluten, which makes the coating chewy and heavy. The best batter is stirred for maybe ten seconds and used straight away, before it warms up. Some chefs keep ice in the bowl to hold it below 10°C.

The oil makes a big difference. Most high-end tempura restaurants in Tokyo use sesame oil, or sesame blended with cottonseed. Pure sesame gives a nuttier flavour and a darker colour; the blend gives a lighter, cleaner result. The temperature sits between 160°C and 180°C depending on what's in the pot, with root vegetables at the lower end and seafood at the higher end, and the chef adjusts it all the time.

A skilled tempura chef never fries too many pieces at once. Every piece that goes in lowers the temperature, and a crowded pot means soggy batter. A good chef works one or two pieces at a time, adjusts the heat between them, and times each one by ear. The sizzle tells them moisture is leaving the ingredient, and when the pitch changes, the piece is done.

When it all goes right, the coating is so light it barely registers as fried. You taste the ingredient first, then the batter, and the oil not at all. In Tokyo that's the bar, and anything heavier counts as ordinary fried food.

Tempura came to Japan from abroad. Portuguese missionaries and traders reached Nagasaki in the sixteenth century and brought the technique of coating food in flour and frying it in oil. The word "tempura" probably comes from the Portuguese "tempero" (seasoning) or "têmporas" (the Ember Days, fasting periods when fried food was allowed in place of meat).

The technique spread slowly. It reached Edo (now Tokyo) in the seventeenth century, and by the mid-Edo period it was a popular street food. Vendors set up stalls along the waterfront and near temples and fried small pieces of fish and vegetables to order. You stood, ate with your hands or a skewer, and moved on. It was fast food and cost a few mon.

The oldest tempura restaurant still running in Tokyo is Sansada (三定) in Asakusa, founded in 1837. Ginza Tenkuni (銀座天國), another institution, opened in 1885. Places like these mark tempura's gradual move from street stall to sit-down restaurant through the late Edo and Meiji periods.

The modern counter, where you sit facing the chef and get each piece as it comes out of the oil, is a twentieth-century development. It turned tempura from something you ate quickly into a meal you sat and watched, with the chef performing and the timing part of the meal.

Locals divide Tokyo's tempura tradition into five major lineages (schools): Tenichi (天一), Mikawa (みかわ), Yamanoue Hotel (山の上ホテル), Tensei (天政) and Kyoboshi (京星). Each has its own approach to oil, batter thickness and frying rhythm, and most of Tokyo's famous tempura chefs today trained in one of these five lines.

The classic lineup at a Tokyo counter follows a rough order, and knowing it helps you follow the meal.

Tiger prawn (kuruma ebi) is the signature piece. Most chefs serve it first, and it tells you how good the meal will be. It should be firm, sweet and only just cooked through. If it's rubbery or opaque all the way through, the chef overcooked it.

Kisu (Japanese whiting) is a small, delicate white fish that's on nearly every tempura menu. The flesh is mild and fine-textured, and it cooks in seconds, so it tests the chef's restraint. Leave it in a moment too long and it dries out.

Sweet potato (satsuma imo) is cut thick, sometimes two centimetres or more, and fried longer at a lower temperature. The result is almost confusing: crisp batter around a creamy, sweet centre that's closer to dessert than a side dish. Fumio Kondo of Tempura Kondo in Ginza is famous for raising the status of vegetable tempura, and his sweet potato is the one most people measure others against.

Shishito pepper fries fast and pops when you bite it. Lotus root (renkon) has a good crunch. Eggplant (nasu) soaks up oil like a sponge, so it takes careful technique to keep it from turning heavy. Shiso leaf, often wrapped around a piece of fish, adds a herbal note.

Kakiage is the mixed fritter, a loose tangle of thinly sliced vegetables and small shrimp fried together into a disc. A good one holds together without being dense. Onion, mitsuba (Japanese parsley) and sakura shrimp are a common mix. It often comes at the end of the meal, on its own or on top of a bowl of rice (kakiage don).

The Seasonal Factor

The great tempura restaurants take the season more seriously than the merely good ones. The core items (prawn, kisu, sweet potato) are there all year, but the best menus change with what's in season.

Spring brings sansai (mountain vegetables): taranome (fatsia shoots), fukinoto (butterbur buds), nanohana (rapeseed flowers) and bamboo shoots. Their gentle bitterness works perfectly against the light batter. For us, spring is the best tempura season in Tokyo.

Summer means eggplant and corn, and young ginger on some menus. Tempura's light cooking suits the heat.

Autumn is for mushrooms: maitake, matsutake (if the budget allows) and shimeji. Root vegetables are at their best, and ginkgo nuts and chestnuts turn up at premium counters.

Winter brings anago (conger eel), a classic that some chefs say is the hardest item to fry well. Winter roots like kabu (turnip) and gobo (burdock) feature heavily too.

If your trip falls in March or April, the spring vegetable tempura alone is worth seeking out. Ask the chef what's in season and they'll tell you.

At a counter, pieces arrive one at a time, straight from the oil to your plate (or onto paper in front of you). The one rule that matters is to eat each piece right away. The batter starts taking on moisture from the ingredient as soon as it leaves the oil, and within a minute or two the crunch is gone. The chef timed it for you to eat it now.

Salt or Sauce

You'll have two choices in front of you: a small dish of tentsuyu (dipping sauce) and one or more kinds of salt.

Tentsuyu is a light broth of dashi, soy sauce and mirin, served with grated daikon radish and fresh ginger on the side. Mix the daikon and ginger into the sauce, then dip the tempura quickly. A brief dip of one edge is enough; don't soak it. The daikon cuts the richness and the ginger brightens it up.

Salt is usually fine sea salt, and sometimes matcha salt (green tea salt) or curry salt. Take a small pinch between thumb and forefinger and sprinkle it straight onto the piece instead of dipping the tempura in the salt dish.

As a rough guide, use salt for lighter items (prawns, kisu, delicately flavoured vegetables) where you want to taste the ingredient, and tentsuyu for richer ones (eggplant, kakiage) that benefit from the sauce's acidity. Really, though, use whichever you like. The chef won't judge, and if you ask, they'll often tell you which they recommend for each piece as they serve it.

Eating Order

At a counter, the chef sets the order. Eat each piece before the next one arrives, and don't let pieces pile up while you finish your beer.

From a shared platter (more common at casual places), the usual approach is to go from lighter to richer: seafood before root vegetables, thin before thick. It isn't a strict rule, and at a casual spot nobody is watching.

If a piece is too big for one bite (a whole prawn, say), cut it on your plate with your chopsticks rather than biting half and putting the rest back. Leaving the prawn tail is fine if you don't want it.

Street Food and Budget Sets (¥800 to ¥1,500)

Tempura began as street food, and you can still eat it that way. On Asakusa's Nakamise-dori and the streets around Senso-ji, vendors sell single pieces on sticks for ¥200 to ¥400 each. They aren't refined, but they're hot and satisfying.

For a proper sit-down meal on a budget, look for tendon (tempura rice bowl) shops. Tendon is a bowl of rice topped with several pieces of tempura and a drizzle of sweet soy-based sauce, and it's the fastest, cheapest way to eat good tempura in Tokyo. Chains like Tenya (てんや) serve tendon sets from around ¥500 to ¥800. The quality is consistent, the portions are generous and there's one on every corner. It's plain, fairly priced tempura, and plenty of locals eat there for a weekday lunch.

Independent teishoku (set meal) restaurants all over Tokyo serve tempura sets for ¥1,000 to ¥1,500, with rice, miso soup, pickles and a plate of mixed tempura. Look in business districts like Nihonbashi and Shimbashi, where office workers line up at lunchtime.

Counter Dining (¥3,000 to ¥10,000)

For most visitors, this is the range to aim for. A seat at a mid-range counter gets you a chef frying to order in front of you, seasonal ingredients, good oil, and the chance to watch tempura being made. Lunch courses here usually run ¥3,000 to ¥5,000. Dinner goes higher, ¥6,000 to ¥10,000, with more courses and pricier ingredients.

Restaurants in this range often appear on the Tabelog Hyakumeiten (百名店, Top 100) list, which is the nearest thing Japan has to a crowd-sourced Michelin guide. The names change from year to year, but the format stays the same: eight to twelve pieces served one at a time, then rice (plain or as tendon), miso soup and pickles.

Ginza, Nihonbashi and Ningyocho are the traditional tempura neighbourhoods. Azabu-Juban and Roppongi have newer places. Many of these counters seat only eight to twelve people, so you'll need a reservation, especially for dinner.

Premium and Michelin (¥20,000+)

At the top is Tempura Kondo (てんぷら近藤) in Ginza. Chef Fumio Kondo has held two Michelin stars for over twelve years in a row and is widely seen as the most important tempura chef alive. His contribution was as much about ideas as technique: he gave vegetables the same standing as seafood, and he treats the process as steaming the ingredient inside the thinnest possible batter.

Kondo's sweet potato is the dish people talk about. He cuts it thick and fries it low and slow, and it tastes nothing like fried food, just pure, concentrated sweetness inside. The carrot, cut even thicker, is just as surprising. An omakase dinner at Kondo is ¥30,000 or more per person, and reservations are hard to get.

Tempura Yokota (天冨良よこ田) in Azabu-Juban has a Michelin star and a Tabelog rating above 3.7. Its style is more traditional Edo-mae (heavier sesame oil, bolder flavour) than Kondo's lighter approach. Budget around ¥30,000 for dinner.

Two more names: Mikawa Zezankyo (みかわ是山居) in Monzen-Nakacho, run by Tetsuya Saotome, is one of the other big names at the top end. Saotome trained in the Mikawa lineage and is known for a bold, flavourful style. Sansada in Asakusa is an easier way into the premium end, with deep historical roots.

At this level you're paying for technique, ingredients and a meal made in front of you by a chef who has spent a whole career on one thing. Whether that's worth ¥30,000 is your call, but the skill is real.

Premium and mid-range tempura counters in Tokyo serve lunch for a lot less than dinner. It's the same chef, the same oil and the same seasonal ingredients, with fewer courses and a shorter meal.

Lunch at a place that charges ¥20,000 for dinner might be ¥8,000 to ¥12,000. A mid-range counter charging ¥8,000 at dinner often has a ¥3,000 to ¥4,000 lunch set. The quality hardly changes. You get fewer pieces and maybe fewer premium items, but the technique is identical.

If your budget stretches to one good tempura meal in Tokyo, make it lunch at a quality counter. You'll get 80% of the experience for 40% of the cost. Lunch reservations are easier to get as well, and most counters serve lunch between 11:30 and 13:30.

Both are deep-fried, and both are central to Tokyo's food culture. If you only have room for one fried-food meal, this is how they differ.

Tonkatsu is a thick pork cutlet in panko breadcrumbs, fried until the crust is golden and the inside juicy. It's hearty comfort food, eaten as a set meal with rice and cabbage, and it's all about the pork: the cut, the breed, how it's cooked.

Tempura is lighter in every way. The coating barely exists and the ingredients change with the seasons. At a counter, you're watching the chef work and eating each piece the moment it's ready, which is closer to a performance than an ordinary meal.

Choose tonkatsu if you want something filling and straightforward, and tempura if you care about technique, seasonal ingredients and a more refined way of eating. Do both at lunch and the two meals together at good restaurants cost less than one dinner at Kondo.

For a wider look at eating in Tokyo, the Tokyo food scene guide covers every category. For another counter-style meal, see our sushi guide. And if you'd like to explore Tokyo's food with a local who handles the reservations, recommendations and ordering, that's what our Kushiyaki Confidential experience is built around.